How to fix FE13's terrible story.

[Esaka]

((This post was started at Gamefaqs, thus my username is CaptainBang. It was never meant to be on this board, but I liked how it turned out so I'm posting it here anyways. I'm not changing all the CaptainBang's to Esaka's because CaptainBang works better IMO))

Gentlemen, I believe we've we've all said these strong words.

"VALM ARC IS FILLER CAPTAINBANG!"

And how cray cray is that? Super cray cray that's how much. But perhaps this crayness has some substantial evidence to back it up? The valm arc, before or after, was never mentioned (in the form of foreshadowing or any substantial conversations) afterwards. In fact, one could argue that the only reason it exists is to let the children get some chapters before late-game.

"BUT WE ALL KNEW THIS CAPTAINBANG!"

Yes, Captain Bang Shishigami Falcon would never just repeat simply just point out the obvious, he creates discussions for JUSTICE! Let me redirect you towards the first, and outside of Awakening only, game to feature the child system. Fire Emblem: Seisen No Keifu... or Holy Wars for you non-weeaboos losers out there... let's just called it FE4 for simplicities sake for now, K?

I believe all us FE4 vets know how the kids and parents are split up in this game, but for those unfamiliar, the children and parents were never playable at once (outside of Fin and his winness, but if I wrote an essay on how much a BAMF Fin is, we'd be here all night) as the parents in the first generation were killed... or crippled... or maimed... or possessed by a Wind Dragon then gaining his will again only after saving the world...

"BUT BANG, THE FE4 PLOT WAS OFTEN CONSIDERED WEAKENED AFTER THE FIRST GENERATION! HOW COULD KILLING OFF THE GEN 1 AWAKENING CAST BE USEFUL?!"

I'm glad you asked my all caps friend. While FE4's massacre is well known by all players by now, the unknown third cut part of FE4 was unused.

"CAPTAINBANG, I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THIS! THIS TOPIC IS NOW RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS! TELL ME MORE!"

Will do, my annoying caps locked alter ego. The third part of FE4 was going to be an arc where the children met up with the parents. Obviously this idea was used in some twisted time travel way in Awakening, but the focus was lessened as the parents were still the main characters, with the children, bluntly put, were thrown away.

"Well, alright, that's all very interesting (My caps button broke), but what does this have to do with anything?"

How about I get to the point my interpretation of a gamefaqs peer? FE4 offered the idea of actually three arcs, one with the parents, one without the kids, and an arc combining the two. What Awakening should have done in its approach is have the Grima arc happen immediately after the Plegia arc, including an extended timeskip of course. While cutting out the "Marth" in the story, as impossible as that sounds... you could do it pretty easily to be honest. Turn chapter 1 and 2 into bandit chapters... make Lon'qu the boss in chapter 5, have Emmeryn's assassination fail no matter what... all simple stuff honestly. It may seem less flashy but it has a good payoff.

The fight with Validar would go exactly as it did in the dream, plus all the other parents escaping showing there is still some HOPE!

Then there would be a timeskip, leading to our favorite cast of little messed up teenagers.

Gerome: No good Lucina! The Risen have found us!
Kjelle: Well let's fight! I'm tired of running from them.
Gerome: ...We should leave...
Kjelle: Are you kidding me? We're capable of stomping out a few Risen!
Lucina: He's not saying that because of fear Kjelle... Frederick (or any other hip Gen 1 survivor) told you to keep me out of trouble. Well I can fight too!
Brady: YEAH! I'll help out too you bas-
Lucina: PRIESTS AND WARFARE DO NOT MIX!


I love myself.
OK, so it would likely seem a bit more interesting then that... hopefully.
Anyways, here we have the potential for an arc focusing entirely on the children, thinking future's past, but an entire arc focusing on it. They try to stop the Risen, take them down, but can't stop Grima due to one of the Gemstones being broken...

"I SEE WHERE YOU'RE GOING WITH THIS NOW BA-"

Indeed you do, we have an arc of the children's failure to defeat Grima, escape from the future, and back into the past. Perhaps some NPC's such as Say'ri and Yenfay will join your cause? Perhaps you can make a few more gen 2 kids? Who knows, but we can have an arc focusing on their adventures, their failure, then going back into the past... informing the people of the first generation of what happened, but with a different approach, then a few chapters would be about how to avoid this destiny while still keeping the audience more engaged then the Valm Arc. We could even still have the kids split up and Lucina would still be the only normal one.

"BUT ESAKA.. I MEAN CAPTAINBANG! WHAT OF THE GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS!"

Way ahead of you. Obviously, we'd need to expand the Plegia arc slightly, by 3 or 4 chapters, while still introducing Cherche (who wouldn't be hard to introduce, "I SERVE LORD VIRION ). Afterwards, we'd have to increase the rate supports grow and make it so that the person with the highest support would automatically be the spouse if you fail beforehand. From a gameplay standpoint, it'd be a little tricky, but pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

"BUT GREAT MASTER SHISHIGAMI, I FAIL AT LIFE AND CAN'T THINK OF A WAY TO SOLVE THE SECOND GEN'S INEVITABLE WORSE BASES!"

...........oh... fudge...........um..................Amp up the bases depending on availability and have the parents affects on them be lesser, because FE4 did it like that and I like FE4 so it should work.

"THANK YOU CAPTAINBANG! YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS ARE ALWAYS SUBSTANTIAL!"

Anytime son, anytime.

...So what do you think?

[Da Bear]

What on earth did I just read?

At any rate I agree that it needs much improvement. Too much time spent on fanservice not enough everywhere else.

[-Cynthia-]

I kind of wish they just cut the non-Lucina children out of the game honestly, since they don't have any plot importance. Having all the pairing options forced all those terrible S support conversations as well as the unsatisfying children/parent meetups. Being able to determine which people marry and not also seems...weird to me.

I didn't mind the Valm arc personally. There needs to be something in between Plegia and the Grima arc and the world feels too small with just Ylisse and Plegia.

[Samias]

My opinion on the Valm arc has actually slightly improved, for one reason: You get a lot more story if you attack bosses with Chrom. The bosses have significant dialogue against Chrom, and in Yen'fay's case, Chrom AND Say'ri. Yen'fay even has additional dialogue if he's felled by Say'ri to boot. However, the fundamental problem is that if you fight the bosses with the "wrong" character, the story ends up feeling much thinner than it should. The game also cuts out the escape from Fort Steiger, which could have been an opportunity to have a 2-part chapter. The game is already just under 50 chapters, but even just one or two more chapters in Valm would have made it feel like you were actually fighting a huge army instead of having my characters run away through a black screen.

I find the Plegia arc the right length except there should have been no break between chapter 9 and 10, ESPECIALLY not unlocking a completely unrelated sidequest. I know you can ignore the sidequest and go straight for chapter 10, but it seemed poorly timed.

The final arc suffers from Avatar being way too perfect of a character with no flaws who comes up with a cheap plan to pull off at the very last moment.

While having the kids auto-join and having chapters on their own might further their story, I prefer the approach that was taken. Having to rush Chrom to marriage is kind of lame already, I don't want to have to do that with every mother. We got the Future Past DLC to cover the "what-ifs" and some nice, detailed additional conversations with the most popular kids in the Scramble DLC.

[shadykid]

I wanted to fight Walhart's million-man army, damn you IS

[Book Bro]

I posted this in another thread, but I think having Tiki and Lucina working together a la Future Past would have been a much better way of bringing in Valm. Naga instructs Lucy to find Tiki, Lucy dresses up as Marth to get to her in the past. In the two years between Plegia and Valm Lucy finds her and brings Chrom to Tiki's tree fort. Then a slightly different course of events plays out in Valm with Gangrel trying to hunt down Tiki or something. Or Walhart capturing Tiki after Lucy goes back to Ylisse because he's a giant red lobster and everyone needs to do as he says dammit.

[Loki Laufeyson]

The Valm arc could have been awesome if there was just more real exposition on the main plot (Grima) involved. Say'ri just bored me and a lot of those chapters just bore me. While the final arc did focus too heavily on Avatar, i did like that it was going back to the main threat, Grima and his followers.

[Vashiane]

The Valm arc could have been awesome if there was just more real exposition on the main plot (Grima) involved. Say'ri just bored me and a lot of those chapters just bore me. While the final arc did focus too heavily on Avatar, i did like that it was going back to the main threat, Grima and his followers.

I know... Say'ri could have easily been replaced by Basilio or Flavia, or even Lon'qu. Virion rejoined the plot after the time skip: Lon'qu could disappear from the roster for three chapters and then re-join you as a part of the resistance.

[sunshineYON]

Eh, I liked how this game differentiated itself with Holy War by doing the Time-Travel thing, both functionally and storywise. Knowing exactly when to recruit the children and getting them the stats and skills they need is nice. FE4 was hard to time and the first time I played, left many unmarried/with unoptimal spouses. The whole cross-country part of the game made getting partners that much more difficult.

[Loki Laufeyson]

I know... Say'ri could have easily been replaced by Basilio or Flavia, or even Lon'qu. Virion rejoined the plot after the time skip: Lon'qu could disappear from the roster for three chapters and then re-join you as a part of the resistance.

Virion's little sideplot if you can call it that, was such a wasted opportunity. I wish there had a been a Rosanne chapter where you can go in and kick out Walhart's guys.

While i get that Say'ri was basically acting as Tour Guide, she was wholly unnecessary. Basilio/Flavia would have been much better and the arc itself, not so long. Lon'qu was from Chon'sin originally, correct? So yeah having him be the guy would have been interesting too.

[Vashiane]

Virion's little sideplot if you can call it that, was such a wasted opportunity. I wish there had a been a Rosanne chapter where you can go in and kick out Walhart's guys.

While i get that Say'ri was basically acting as Tour Guide, she was wholly unnecessary. Basilio/Flavia would have been much better and the arc itself, not so long. Lon'qu was from Chon'sin originally, correct? So yeah having him be the guy would have been interesting too.

Totally! I wanted to run around with Virion and Cherche for a few chapters. Those two are so badass, I love them.

Mm-hmm, he is. It would have been much more interesting than Lyn-expy Say'ri... although running chapter 18 with her as the boss-killer adds a very nice touch, albeit an easily missed one.

[Jedi]

Mm-hmm, he is. It would have been much more interesting than Lyn-expy Say'ri...

You probably should get your Expy's right. More akin to Minerva then ever Lyn. K thanks

[shadykid]

You probably should get your Expy's right. More akin to Minerva then ever Lyn. K thanks

they probably just went "oh hey swordmaster, Lyn expy!"

[Vashiane]

You probably should get your Expy's right. More akin to Minerva then ever Lyn. K thanks

Ah... beginner's mistake. [/shrug]

[Donnel]

The story seems pretty fine to me.

If there's any improvement, maybe they should add more details on how these characters survived for paralouges and against grima.

Time travel things are good to open up whole load of possibilities to introduce characters from other series.

[FeFish]

I wish they made all the characters plot relevant beyond there recruitment, I mean it would be cool if they had something like the "walking dead tell tail game" so the plot changes depending on who you recruit. Because with Henry it's just a few jokes and nothing more etc. no more story stuff with him

[Shengar]

I wish they made all the characters plot relevant beyond there recruitment, I mean it would be cool if they had something like the "walking dead tell tail game" so the plot changes depending on who you recruit. Because with Henry it's just a few jokes and nothing more etc. no more story stuff with him

That would need extensive and serious writing to do, and with this game terrible directing, I thought that would make things worse.

[FeFish]

That would need extensive and serious writing to do, and with this game terrible directing, I thought that would make things worse.

but maybe for a console version... besides this game didn't have terrible directing!

[Shengar]

but maybe for a console version... besides this game didn't have terrible directing!

For me the directing is kinda terrible. Although I've yet to finished the story, much major part of the cutscene or story sequence kinda detract me from enjoyment because how they handle those thing. One example is like how suddenly a bunch Risen archer appeared in chapter 9. Maybe they intended the thing happened when the rescue squad in midair, and the archers are stationed in high places near that execution platform, but still, push my imagination that because the original isn't adequate enough to explain things still irks me. This is problem I mainly see in JRPGs, though fortunately the character neat design is enough to compesate for that.

Well, if they really want to create console FE game, then that writing should be just natural.

[The Void]

That would need extensive and serious writing to do, and with this game terrible directing, I thought that would make things worse.

There's also the issue of the permadeath system, which is really one of the (if not the only) obstacles in the way of having more characters do more through the story past recruitment.

I'll be frank about this. Want more characters to do more through the story? Either get rid of permadeath outright, or tweak it.

Edited May 29, 2013 by The Void

[Shengar]

There's also the issue of the permadeath system, which is really one of the (if not the only) obstacles in the way of having more characters do more through the story past recruitment.

I'll be frank about this. Want more characters to do more through the story? Get rid of permadeath.

Actually, I'm kinda fond of the permadeath system and want to see how it played oout storywise. But again it really need A LOT of writing, and A LOT of voice acting. The latter is the most difficult part, so I though silent route or support style "conversation" would the best try to take. It is the former that I'm worried to. While IS writers can crafted interesting characters overall, the main story still pretty bland.

Well, this is game with crapload of characters, so plot driven story tend to left many of those character have not enough time shine. That's why I always felt the story become detractment to my enjoyment and thought character driven story would suit FE the best,

[Wyvern_Lord]

Personally i don't believe that the story sucks (it's nowhere near FF13 level of suckitude) it just suffers from some rushed pacing mid-way through and quite a few missed opportunity's, especially with valm's arc which should have been expanded upon and made walhart a much bigger threat.

personally i give the plot a 5/10, has good parts and is enjoyable but if you start to think about it a lot doesn't make sense and feels a bit rushed

[RJWalker]

After Plegia, the focus starts to shift more and more on Avatar and the story starts falling apart very quickly.

Solution? Get rid of the avatar. A self insert to such a huge level always does more harm than good.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Ranger Jack Walker

[BrightBow]

There's also the issue of the permadeath system, which is really one of the (if not the only) obstacles in the way of having more characters do more through the story past recruitment.

I'll be frank about this. Want more characters to do more through the story? Either get rid of permadeath outright, or tweak it.

No, the issue is that if you focus on too many characters, you instead end up focusing on no one and the whole thing ends in a cluttered mess.

Awakening can't even properly manage to have more then two main characters.

Frederick is just handing out reports. Lissa barely gets any line at all and ever since Lucina joined, she had been awfully quiet as well.

And as a result, if they do speak up, it feels awfully random.

It's really just the MU and Chrom show.

I would say that PoR and is pretty much my idea how the issue should be handled.

Even the characters who had nothing to do with the main story (which were a lot. For example every single Laguz had something to do with the main plot) would at least have some sort of related sub plot.

Edited May 29, 2013 by BrightBow

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

After Plegia, the focus starts to shift more and more on Avatar and the story starts falling apart very quickly.

Solution? Get rid of the avatar. A self insert to such a huge level always does more harm than good.

I..... agree with this

And maybe connect Walhart's story in one way or another

Edited May 29, 2013 by JSND